Follow the leader

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a remedy that partly draws on New Zealand's experience.

- BERNARD LAGAN

It was the pugilist in a double-breasted suit, the former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, who told Australians that when the government changes, so does their country,

Keating’s words, delivered towards the end of his tenure in 1996, were less a prophecy than a lament; he could see his slayer, the center-right soon-to-be prime minister John Howard, coming. Howard would deliver “just a straight appalling loss for Australia”, Keating warned.

He was mostly wrong. Under Howard’s more than 10 years in office, the average wage increased by more than 50% and unemployment plummeted to 30-year lows. Serious gun-control laws ended mass shootings. A now widely accepted consumption tax arrived. But the nation also joined America’s endless wars, brutalised asylum seekers and stalled reconciliation with its Aboriginal people.

Again, we feel the quivers of impending great change. Anthony Albanese, who led the Labor Party back into office on May 21 after close to a decade in opposition, shows intentions to be the engineer of the national project, not to be the tweaker and tinkerer that contented his predecessor, Scott Morrison.